problem before the man got his luggage at Kildrummie. Perhaps Peter's most famous achievement was his demolition of a south country bagman, who had made himself unpleasant, and the story was much tasted by our guard's admirers. This self-important and vivacious gentleman, seated in the first, was watching Peter's leisurely movements on the Kildrummie platform with much impatience, and lost all self-control on Peter going outside to examine the road for any distant passenger. "Look here, guard, this train ought to have left five minutes ago, and I give you notice that if we miss our connection I 'll hold your company responsible." At the sound of this foreign voice with its indecent clamour, Peter returned and took up his position opposite the speaker, while the staff and the whole body of passengers--four Kildrummie and three Drumtochty, quite sufficient for the situation--waited the issue. Not one word did Peter deign to reply, but he fixed the irate traveller with a gaze so searching, so awful, so irresistible, that the poor man fell back into his seat and pretended to look out at the opposite window. After a pause of thirty seconds, Peter turned to the engine-driver. "They 're a' here noo, an' there 's nae use waitin' langer; ca' awa', but ye needna distress the engine." It was noticed that the foolhardy traveller kept the full length of the junction between himself and Peter till the Dunleith train came in, while his very back was eloquent of humiliation, and Hillocks offered his snuff-box ostentatiously to Peter, which that worthy accepted as a public tribute of admiration. "Look, Kate, there he is;" and there Peter was, standing in his favourite attitude, his legs wide apart and his thumbs in his armholes, superior, abstracted, motionless till the train stopped, when he came forward. [Illustration: Peter was standing in his favourite attitude.] "Prood tae see ye, General, coming back at laist, an' the Miss wi' ye; it 'll no be the blame o' the fouk up by gin ye bena happy. Drumtochty hes an idea o' itsel', and peety the man 'at tries tae drive them, but they 're couthy. "This wy, an' a'll see tae yir luggage," and before Peter made for the Dunleith van it is said that he took off his cap to Kate; but if so, this was the only time he had ever shown such gallantry to a lady. Certainly he must have been flustered by something, for he did not notice that Carmichael, overcome by shyness at the sight of the Carnegies in the first, had hid himself in the second, till he closed the doors; then the Carnegies heard it all. "It's I, Peter," very quietly; "your first has passengers to-day, and . . . I 'll just sit here." "Come oot o' that," after a moment, during which Peter had simply looked; then the hat and the tweeds came stumbling into the first, making some sort of a bow and muttering an apology.